Ever get zero done on your TODO list? Sure, you might say. When you get sick. Well, today I got sick. I don’t get sick a lot. This was pretty severe for me. All I wanted to do was lie in bed all day.
Well, except for the times I felt like dying would be less painful.
Yes, I’m a baby. It’s something like the flu or something. It shouldn’t be the flu since I got my flu shot. I hate getting flu shots, but this year I managed it.
And now I’m sick. When you mostly work on your own and your boss is on the other side of the country and doesn’t direct your day to day tasks, it’s hard to figure out how to be sick. I guess my company has a phone number I’m supposed to call. But, it’s not like there is a team member that I can call up and say, “Hey, I’m not feeling well today, could you take my. . .TODO list?”
I thought, “I’ll figure it out.” And then my phone rang. About 8:00AM. There was stuff broken at my call centers. . .all four of them. This is one of the things I do. This is what I’m best at: managing outages.
I stumbled out of bed and down to my home office. I took along a barf bucket because it seemed like a good idea and my office is a long way from the bathroom.
I got on the phone conference and started working the outage. I worked it through the morning. When noon came, I was not at all hungry. A trip to the bathroom made me feel like I’d never be hungry again.
I thought,
You know what I need? Ginger Ale. . and some crackers and orange juice.
We had none at home.
I’ll drag myself out to the store when this call is over and get them.
I worked the call all through the afternoon. My kids came home from school. My lovely wife came home from work.
Hey, Dad. It’s dinner time.
You guys go ahead without me.
I still wasn’t hungry although the thought of using the barf bucket was fading. Finally, as evening transitioned into late evening. We finished. The last task was to have every single agent (hundreds of them) log out and log back on. That takes a long time.
The problem was resolved and I shuffled upstairs. (My office is in the basement.) I fixed the last item on my son’s car for his broken fuel pump. Fortunately, driving takes place sitting down. I get my Ginger ale, Sprite, crackers and orange juice. I even ate and drank a little.
It’s funny, today was a sick day. Good thing I don’t get sick very often.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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